Rethinking Software Agents as Building Blocks of Software Systems

Federico Bergenti; Stefania Monica

doi:10.1007/978-3-032-22940-3_7

Rethinking Software Agents as Building Blocks of Software Systems

Federico Bergenti, Stefania Monica

Viviana Mascardi, Andrea Omicini (a cura di)

The Agents Journey: Twenty-Five Years of Multi-agent Systems, capitolo 7, pp. 181–212

Lecture Notes in Computer Science (State-of-the-Art Survey) 16395

Springer Nature Switzerland

aprile 2026

The idea of using software agents as fundamental building blocks within software systems has been a subject of relevant interest over the past three decades. This chapter seeks to contextualize the longstanding debate surrounding the role of software agents as building blocks of software systems within the framework of contemporary software development. Specifically, the focus of this chapter is on the programmatic dimension of development with the intent to emphasize the integration of cognitive agents as fine-grained modular units within software architectures. The metaphors that characterize cognitive agents are explored as promising means to enable the treatment of agents as effective building blocks of fine-grained software architectures. A relevant part of this chapter is dedicated to examine the implications of adopting cognitive agents within mainstream software development practice. Additionally, this chapter presents a preliminary proposal of a novel system level to use cognitive agents in the scope of contemporary software development.

parole chiave Agent-oriented software engineering, Agent-based software systems, Software agents, Agent-oriented programming

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Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS)

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